


Chair Force

by Fearthefuzzybear



Category: Original Work
Genre: Chairs, Don't copy to another site, Magic, sentient chairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 20:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19092376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fearthefuzzybear/pseuds/Fearthefuzzybear
Summary: Title is misleading.Seven chairs. The fifth one ended up in France.





	Chair Force

Indeed, I am the fifth chair. I live in a museum in France where they treat me well and dust me regularly. None of the other chairs get this treatment. Not First with his golden legs, not Second with his silver legs, nor Third with her ruby legs. Fourth is draped with a velvet cloth, but she sits in the storage room, collecting dust. It won’t be long until she’s warped beyond repair. 

 

A long time ago, I woke up in a room. A small room, furnished by the smell of pine and a small bed. A worktable sat in the corner, and the master was slaving away at another chair, First. Bits of wood littered the floor and various sizes of chair legs were scattered about.

 

 First had finally been assembled properly about a month later, as fusing wood and gold is a long and arduous process, and our master had to create the method from scratch. 

 

As more of us were assembled and came to life, our differences began to surface. First, with his soft golden legs, boasted he was worth more than the whole rest of us put together. Third liked to contest him on that all the time, challenging him with her glittering red legs, but First would always rebuke her, saying that because he was older than her he was surely worth more. They never actually fought in fear of breaking their lovingly shaped legs and saddening the master, but they argued a lot. Besides the fact that they were chairs and couldn’t really move on their own. Silver-legged Second stayed out of their bickering, for the most part, preferring to rest near the window where he would sit and sigh and watch the passing nobles in their tall carriages pulled by shiny horses. 

 

Fourth's assembly wasn't as difficult as the first three's, but it was much more complicated, involving the summoning and contracting of a high spirit. Afterwards, she’d needed to be covered with a velvet cloth due to the power she granted, the power to turn anything to gold, at the cost of the user’s soul. Sixth and Seventh only needed to be infused with Fourth's new magic to be assembled and granted their abilities, though their engravings made sure that the magic wasn’t used for anything other than the intended purpose. Fourth took an instant liking to Seventh, and doted on him like a proud mother would her favorite child. Sixth attached herself to me and would ask me about all I knew.

 

(“Fifth, what is it that makes day light?” “Fifth, what's that bit of green on the windowsill?” “Fifth, why can we not move freely like the master? I would like to move like that someday.”)

 

I wasn't the only victim of her curiosity, but I always answered her questions. Her constant questions always irritated Second, and he never answered any of them. 

The master fashioned furniture out of anything he could. He made and sold tables, beds, and benches, but nothing else ever came to life. He made a paltry sum selling these, but it was enough to live on. It was enough to rent our room. 

 

We were happy. 

 

Then, the master couldn’t pay rent. The landlord came storming in the day after it was due, his face bright red and swollen with anger. The little room rattled and shook with his rage as he demanded the rent money. The master apologized and said he couldn’t pay. The landlord ordered one of us to be used as payment instead. The master couldn’t stand to part with us, he pleaded with the landlord to reconsider, perhaps take a table, he begged, or a bench. He called in his men, who searched the little room, overturning the worktable and scattering the bed all over the place. . They found Fourth, draped in her velvet cloth, hidden in a corner of the little room. The landlord gave her a cursory glance and nodded, and she was carried from the room. He followed them out, and we never saw her again.

 

The master fell to his knees and wept. He mourned her over the next few weeks, and couldn’t get any work done. Rent collection time came around again, and again we had no money. This time, the landlord took away First. Again, the master mourned. This time, though, he took it upon himself to sell what he could, before anyone else could be taken. The worktable was the first to go. Then he sold his bed. He used his tools to fashion bookshelves and dressers, but alas, he still fell short. This time, though the landlord took the money, he made sure to warn the master that next collection day would come twice as fast, and that if he didn’t have the money, that he would be evicted from the room.

 

Seventh became broody and quiet with Fourth gone. Third had adopted the role of doting aunt and cared for him nearly as well as Fourth had, but he never truly emerged from his depression. Sixth stayed nearer to me than she ever had before, asking if she would be taken next. I tried to assure her that she wouldn’t be taken at all, but on the next collection day, true to the landlord’s word we were evicted. The master and his tools were kicked to the streets, and we were seized as property of the landlord. 

 

He sold us, of course. Fourth had been given as a present to the king already, she was so finely made. The landlord had made sure to save the others he had seized (he wasn’t totally cold) in case the master had made enough money to pay him back, but now we were only taking up space. First was sold the next day to a rather large man, who came back the next day complaining about the softness of his new chair’s legs and how they’d bent when he sat on them. He was given Second as compensation. Occasionally, we would see the master staring at us longingly through the window before the landlord spotted him and closed the shutters. Seventh became very withdrawn, and would no longer respond to Third.

 

Third was given to a close friend of the landlord’s, who in turn gave her to his daughter, who was very ill. Third was seated by the window so the little girl could sit and watch the world go by, day after day. As time went on, the little girl got better, and Third became well-worn. I know you don’t care about this, but I do. 

 

I was sold to an old man who had no-one but a cat for the mice and a sparsely-furnished room to keep him company. Over the years, I learned things. Things from the old man’s memory as he sat and reminisced. He heard screaming through the night, and it terrified him. His daughter came over occasionally, a welcome distraction. She always brought food and her children, who sat in front of the fire and listened to their old grandpa tell stories. Stories of working as a shoemaker and of his customer’s outrageous requests. The woman and the old man would talk late into the night, and I heard them arguing about something called Divine Judgement more than once. As time went on, the visits became more and more infrequent. Soon they stopped altogether. 

 

During that time I couldn’t help but reflect. Would Sixth be alright? Whatever had happened to FIrst?  

 

The old man died after a few months of being alone. People came in to collect his body after a few hours, and someone else came in to collect me a few hours later. I was taken to a big white cathedral. I was carried through a silver archway and set before the altar, a misshapen lump of gold, littered with bits of charcoal and dusted with soot. Mounted before me was Seventh. The people around me howled and shrieked as I was carried through their midst, making such a ruckus that the red crystal chandelier above us tinkled and chimed. 

 

At the seeming lack of reaction, they cried louder, directing their wailing to the heavens. I was afraid my seat would splinter, the way their shouts echoed. Seventh remained passive, and I could tell that he recognized me too. The resounding lack of a smiting gave me hope, hope that I might find Sixth and be forgiven, hope that we could be happy again.

 

Silence fell and clouded the air. One lone voice speared through the air. A woman, kicking and struggling as she was dragged through the crowd which had since gone silent and was watching her. Each pair of eyes shifting from one side to the other as she was pulled past them. She was seated in front of the altar, but she pulled herself free and ran for the door, pushing through the crowd 

 

She was stripped of her clothing in front of the crowd and forced into nun’s clothing. The black cloth made her stand out against the white walls of the temple. Behind the altar, a tall  gangly woman wearing a white gown and black gloves emerged from a back room bearing Sixth. From her posture, I could see  neither of them wanted to be there. The people holding the woman down dropped her onto Sixth, who had been placed with the utmost care in front of the lump of gold. 

 

A whisper of wind blew through the temple. The crowd shuddered collectively, gasping here and there where the breeze slithered up a leg unexpectedly or sent chills up someone’s back. It might have been my imagination, but it looked like Sixth sat up straighter in that moment, as the gust snaked its way through the crowd to surround her, creating a small cyclone. The woman stopped struggling and stared dead ahead as her eyes glazed over. The entire room was holding its breath; you could’ve felt it if you were there. The winds became stronger, and the woman’s hair whipped around her fiercely. 

 

Then Sixth began to fly. She rose up with the woman, flying high above the heads of the people. The head of the woman brushed the bottommost crystal shard of the chandelier, creating a soft chime. Amazingly, the roaring wind did not disturb the crystals. They hung there, suspended in the air. With a snap, they dropped. The wind appeared beneath them to cushion their fall, and the woman dropped from the chair. 

 

A few of the people from the cheering crowd rushed up to carry the woman away, while Sixth’s handler took me and my sister away to the back room. As soon as her gloves touched me I fell asleep. 

 

I awoke to darkness. A drip drip dripping sound echoed from my left, and I could feel the moisture seeping into my back. 

 

A voice came from my right.

 

“Fifth,”

 

It was said with such affection that I could hardly believe it. The master. The master was here! I was so overwhelmed with joy I swear I started shaking. I heard the rattle of his breath and I realized he wasn’t doing so well. I listened in anguish as he crawled over to me, and heard a faint metallic clinking noise.  _ He’s chained _ . 

 

The door slammed open. The woman with the gloves glided in, carrying Sixth. She slammed my sister down on the cold pavement, and I heard the sickening crack her legs made as they landed. I knew the master had heard them too, he groaned and winced when he heard it. The woman strode toward him and yanked his head up by his hair, still wearing those black gloves. 

 

“Tell me,” she seethed, “tell me how every single thing you create gains a soul.”

 

She spoke with such force that flecks of saliva flew from her too-white polished teeth and spattered on the master's face. 

 

“I told you,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “you're delusional. They're only objects. They don't think, and they don't feel.”

 

“ _ We _ did,” she whispered, pulling his face closer to hers, “we all had souls. Do not deny us our existence.”

 

The master scoffed. Scoffed! I couldn't believe my back. Did the master truly think so little of us? 

 

A thought occurred to me. What if he was acting? Pretending we weren't  _ real _ so we would be protected. I hoped with all my being to be right.

 

“They aren't alive, Roselle. Look at yourself. You're a lunatic. Drop the facade, you're only fooling yourself.” he sneered, “you're no reincarnation of Sixth, she burned.”

 

“I am Sixth.” she murmured, “is that really so hard to believe?”

 

The woman (Roselle? Sixth? Splinters, this was confusing.) turned to me. 

 

“Fifth, why can we not move freely like the master?” 

 

“Because,” I responded automatically, “He is human, and we are not.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Yes, its a story about chairs. Written in creative writing class.


End file.
